The pre-order discount deal on Windows 7 has sold out less than two days after it began.

According to Sitepoint, most of Microsoft’s retail partners exhausted stocks within the first eight hours of trading, while Amazon has already exceeded the amount of Vista copies that it sold during its entire 17 week pre-order sales period.

Many visitors to the Microsoft online store were greeted with a multilingual message that said: “Due to the eagerly anticipated Windows 7 pre-order offer we're experiencing a higher level of demand on our website than usual. This means you can't access the site right now and we're sorry about that.”

A visit to the Microsoft store today will show the message that the promotional pricing is no longer available.

Although Microsoft has yet to comment on the pre-order sales directly, it told Silicon.com that it was “excited with the great response from US and international consumers for the Windows 7 pre-order discount program.”